Sick
by irishhair
Summary: Flight of the Conchords: Bret and Jemaine are home sick, so Murray brings them a movie to watch while they recover. Bret/Jemaine. Warnings: slash, tooth rotting fluff
1. Sam Frodo

The sound of Murray Hewitt banging through the apartment was something of a trial in the best of times, but now Jemaine would have said something very cutting if only his head wasn't hurting so much.

"Alright guys, I'm back from the grocery store. You know, the eh supermarket?"

Yep, deep sarcasm was what this situation needed but he simply couldn't find the energy to think of something suitably devastating. Besides, Murray had gone out for them on his own lunchbreak. He was really quite nice in his own bumbling, geography teacher way.

Bret emerged from the bedroom they shared with his blanket wrapped around him like some kind of toga-poncho combo. He looked as bad as Jemaine felt, like a peruvian/roman ghost with his papery skin and the bruise-like shadows under his eyes. Bret, at least could pull off the gaunt invalid look though. Jemaine felt self-consciously like a wheezing sweat streaked animal next to him.

"Hi, Murray," said Bret weakly and collapsed on the couch, tucking his togo-poncho closer around himself.

"Right," Murray enthusiastically rubbed his hands together, "First off, I'd just like to formally excuse you from yesterday's meeting"

"Thanks, Murray," they chorused dutifully. There was a band meeting yesterday?

"Well, I've gotten you some soup. In a carton! Imagine that! What will they think of next? Baked beans in bottles? Anyway, there wasn't any chicken, so I got one carrot and corriander and one tomato. You can sort that out among yourselves."

Jemaine nodded dully and Bret received the brown paper bag reverently and clutched it to his chest.

"There's also lots of bottled water in there so you can get your fluids. And if you've drunken it all by tomorrow, I'll see about getting you some lemonade."

Honestly, they weren't children. Huh. Why couldn't they just have lemonade now?

"I'll just heat up the soup for you," said Murray, gingerly extracting the bag from Bret's arms, "And you should drink some of your water," he called over his shoulder on the way to the kitchen.

Jemaine, slumped down next to his bandmate on the couch and reached for the abandoned paper bag. At the same moment Bret reached for the bag and their feverish hands brushed. Jemaine snatched his hand back quickly (or as quickly as his sluggish body would allow him. Everything he did felt laboured and ineffective like he was running with his legs underwater).

"Sorry," Bret rasped in a voice that hadn't been used much in the past 36 hours. He sounded like he was consoling a grieving parent whose child had died of leukemia rather than apologising for brushing against someone.

"S'okay," Jemaine muttered back. His throat felt like it had been sandpapered and he didn't much care to think what he must sound like. He was not to know that Bret was thinking quietly to himself that Jemaine's deep growly voice sounded like a bit like Barry White.

Shaking this thought away, Bret passed a large bottle to Jemaine and took one himself. They sat taking long gulps of the cool liquid waiting for Murray to return, enjoying the still air and the heat between their bodies.

"Oh guys, you should have called me for glasses!" Murray's plaintive cry shook them out of their respective daydreams. Bret jumped and sloshed water down his tee shirt and shivered at the cold water against his hot skin.

"Alright don't panic, I have an emergency felt tip pen with me. I'll write your names on the bottles so you don't get them mixed up and get each other's germs," Murray produced a pen from his shirt pocket and carefully wrote on the curved surface of the bottles. The "t" at the end of "Bret" sloped off dangerously when the plastic bent inwards and the pen skidded.

"Right, here's the soup. It's quite hot so be careful and don't burn your lip, Jemaine"

"What about me, Murray?" asked Bret

"Well Jemaine's lips are at greater risk. The surface area of skin on his mouth is emormous! Mel showed me a photo-"

"Yes, thank you, Murray," said Jemaine quickly. And then burnt his lip when he sipped his soup too fast.

Having then administerd the mugs of soup, Murray Nightingale bustled off to the kitchen to get a tea towel for Bret's shirt.

Jemaine sucked his burnt lip while Bret noisily slurped his soup.

"Can you eat your soup more quietly?" snapped Jemaine

"I'm sorry," replied Bret, looking like a kicked puppy and guility resumed his soup-eating. It was only marginally quieter but Jemaine dropped the subject.

Murray reemerged from the kitchen with the tea towel and gently swiped at Bret's shirt before Bret took it embarrassedly and continued drying himself. Murray peered at them anxiously. He didn't want to leave them alone but matters of international importance were calling him back to work. And tech support was back this week.

"Ok guys, I'll be back in the morning to see how you're getting on. Drink your water, take your medicine and think healing thoughts. Mind over body and...that," Murray ended weakly.

"Oh and I almost forgot about the film!" Bret and Jemaine perked up a bit at that, "It's a fantasy and in my opinion it's one of the best ones ever made-"

"Is it Labyrinth?" asked Bret. 1986 David Bowie and goblins!

"Is is the Princess Bride?" asked Jemaine. True love...and and fighting and killing and stuff!

"-in New Zealand."

"Sorry, Murray what?" Bret asked confused

"It's Lord of the Rings again isn't it?" asked Jemaine, resignedly

"Yes Jemaine you guessed it. One of the best fantasy films made in New Zealand," Murray beamed at them expectantly.

"Thank you Murray," Bret sighed. Lord of the Rings was a good film but, there were only so many times you could watch a fim patriotically.

"I'll start it for you so you don't have to get up," their ever helpful manager informed them

"It's ok Murray we can do it," said Jemaine hopefully

"Nonsense. That's what I'm here for. Someone needs to take care of you two," replied Murray, quashing any hopes of them just pretending they'd watched it tomorrow.

Murray busied himself with the dvd player while Jemaine rebelliously drank from Bret's water bottle behind his back. Murray left the appartment during the FBI warning, leaving the two band memebers alone.

"I don't think I can get up to turn it off," Bret said matter of factly

"Neither can I."

As Cate Blanchett's voice reading the exposition filled the room, Bret adjusted his blanket again.

"Do you want some blanket?" he asked cordially

"Yeah alright." Jemaine didn't really want under the blanket but he felt a bit guilty for using Bret's water and didn't want to hurt his feelings. Bret draped it around his friend and tucked it against him.

"Thanks," said Jemaine uncomfortably. Bret shifted nearer to him until their legs were touching. While Jemaine was feverish, Bret was chilled and he was drawn to his friend's warmth like a magnet to a fridge. Or to a metal stove seeing as fridges were cold.

They sat like that, shifting closer and closer together, for the duration of Hobbiton being cute until by the time Gandalf was being scarey, Bret was almost in Jemaine's lap.

As Ian McKellan boomed (considerable louder than Murray had in the music video for "Stefan") at Ian Holme, Bret sqeaked and hid his head in the crook of his friend's shoulder. Jemaine awkwardly petted his shoulder while murmering in what he hoped was a soothing way. Then it was back to Hobbiton cosy-wosyness and Gandalf was just an old bloke in a dress with a beard again. But Bret didn't move his head.

"Do you think Sam is gay for Frodo?" Jemaine asked idly while carding through Bret's hair with his fingers.

"What?" Bret turned his red rimmed eyes towards him

"Sam. He's always with him and looking after him. I think he fancies him a little bit" Jemaine replied decisively, continuing his gentle scalp massage.

"Maybe. Frodo likes Sam anyway" said Bret resting contentedly against Jemaine's broad, warm body.

"Really. I think it's more one sided," Jemaine's hands abruptly left Bret's head

"No, Frodo says he loves Sam all the time. It's not his fault Sam doesn't listen to him"

"When did Frodo say that?" asked Jemaine, feeling strangely irritable for some reason.

"He always tells Sam he needs him and he's glad he's there," said Bret, who was resolutely Not Pouting. Grown men did not pout over minor disagreements with their mates concering fictional gay realtionships.

"That's not the same thing" muttered Jemaine

"It is if your listening properly. You have to read between the lines." Jemaine satisfied himself with a cynical 'hmmph' and allowed his hand to wander back towards Bret's neglected head.


	2. Gimli Legolas

"Bret?" Jemaine's voice rumbled accusingly from above him.

Bret froze. He had been sure that Jemaine had drifted off to sleep.

"Yeah?" he asked as innocently as he could. Which was not all that convincing really.

"Were you wiping your nose on my shirt?" Jemaine continued

"Um, yeah. Sorry," said Bret blushing. He hadn't been wiping his nose on Jemaine. What he had been doing was much more embarrassing and taboo. He had been nuzzling his friend's chest with his cheek. He started to move away from the other man's loose embrace.

"You don't need to move," Jemaine mumbled quickly, "Just use a tissue next time"

Bret settled back against his bandmate, with his head tucked under Jemaine's chin. Jemaine wrapped his arms closer around Bret's waist. They resumed watching the film with enormous intensity as they both pretended that they weren't bothered by the proximity. The Council of Elrond had never been under such scrutiny.

"I like that lady-elf," said Jemaine trying for blasé but sounding more desperate than anything.

"Arwen?" said Bret whose fascination with Liv Tyler had been cut short after Mel tried to kiss him in her costume for the music video. He'd had nightmares about hobbits and lady-elves for weeks afterwards.

"No that one," said Jemaine gesturing at the screen, "we've missed it." He sprang to his feet with alacrity and staggered slightly as his sick body protested at the sudden movement. He searched intently for twenty six seconds (Bret counted), before producing the remote.

After several minutes of fast forwarding, rewinding and sudden violent stabs at the pause button, a still image of several elves was displayed on the screen.

"That one," said Jemaine

Bret squinted at the screen.

"That's a boy-elf, not a lady elf"

"What? Of course it's a lady-elf," Jemaine said panicky

Bret studied the tv for several seconds more.

"No man, it's definitely a boy-elf," he said in a conciliatory tone of voice. It looked a bit familiar actually, now that he looked at it. Maybe the actor was some friend of a friend or something back home.

"But he's too pretty to be a boy," Jemaine said under his breath, "I thought it was a girl. That's not gay, it's a case of mistaken identity"

"I never said it was gay"

"Yeah well, it isn't. Just in case you were thinking it was." Jemaine quietly unpaused the film and sat back down awkwardly. Neither of them were sure how to sit and shuffled about nervously.

"Do you think Gimli thought Legolas was a girl?" Bret asked suddenly

"What?" Jemaine asked bewildered

"Do you think Gimli thought Legolas was a girl?"

"I heard you the first time, I just don't understand"

"Maybe he liked Legolas and then found out he was a boy-elf and was embarrassed. Maybe that's why he was mean to him at first. He was shy"

Jemaine waited for a few seconds to see if what his friend had just said would get any less weird on reflection. Nope, still weird.

"What?"

"I don't know. Maybe he thought Legolas was a pretty lady elf, then he found out that he was a boy and acted all mean so no one would suspect that he'd had a gay crush on a girly boy-elf. It makes a lot of sense really"

"How much of that medicine did you take?" Jemaine asked seriously. Bret didn't seem to hear, or if he did he didn't let it interrupt him.

"Like that time in uni you liked Sarah Fielding and you told everyone that she looked like an aardvark"

"I didn't like her," said Jemaine defensively, "and she did look like an aardvark"

"Why were you kissing her at my birthday party then?" asked Bret sulkily

"She was kissing me. I was just standing there and she came at my mouth with her face like it was an ant hill. I just let her to be polite"

"Huh"

"And I don't see what this has to do with Gimli being gay for elves" Seriously when had this turned into The Return of the Sarah Fielding Saga. It had taken him three years to convince Bret that the party had been a drunken fluke, he didn't want to get into all that again.

"Not elves. Just Legolas," said Bret, more sulky by the minute

"He did like Galadriel a lot"

"Galadriel's a girl. And she's married. Gimli's not like that"

"This is a really stupid conversation"

"I didn't say that when you started on about Sam and Frodo." Suddenly there was a foot of sofa between them and the atmosphere was icy.

"At least they're both hobbits"

"Arwen and Aragorn are different species"

"Yeah but, they're not..." Jemaine trailed off and sighed.

They slumped at opposite sides of the sofa with their bodies facing away from each other for the next half hour. Jemaine looked over at Bret who was pouting slightly at the screen. He cleared his throat loudly in the still silence.

"You know, because elves mostly look all girly and dwarves all look like guys it wouldn't be that gay if Legolas and Gimli liked each other"

Bret smiled and swivelled his torso around to face toward Jemaine. Jemaine smiled weakly back. This was exactly why no one should watch Lord of the Rings so many times.


	3. Aragorn Boromir

"That's just ridiculous, no one could kill that many orcs with that amount of arrows in them.

He looks like a pincushion," Bret remarked, deciding to ignore the fact that the likelihood of being attacked by orcs was not all that great to begin with.

"He feels guilty about taking the ring from Frodo. Trying to make it up," said Jemaine hoarsely.

They had spoken more during the course of the film than they had for the past two days. Bret had always been chatty during films though. Jemaine had thought it was cute when they first met. Then he thought it was annoying. He wasn't sure how he felt about it right now. The thing was, once Bret asked his silly questions, Jemaine's mind was suddenly devoted to answering them. They gnawed away at his consciousness until he thought up a satisfactory answer.

"Do you suppose Jareth is a goblin or is he just the goblin king?"; "What happened to the submarine anyway?"; "Is he the baddie?"; "Hang on, what just happened? I was fixing my shirt."

Watching movies was now less a silent appreciation of the film making and acting and more a running commentary on whatever seemed to occur to Bret at the time. And after time he'd picked up the habit himself of voicing any and every thought he had on the film.

"So is he a goodie or a baddie?" Bret asked, "Its a bit ambiguous isn't it?"

"He tried to mug Frodo and failed but he also tried to save Merry and Pippen. And failed. He is fairly inept at being a goodie or a baddie, really," Jemaine answered.

"Aragorn thinks he's a goodie. He's not cross about Frodo or anything."

"Well it's a bit late for that when Boromir's dying. It's nice to be nice to people with arrows sticking out of them." Good general advice for life really.

"They didn't even get on that well. I think Boromir thought Aragorn was too scruffy to be his king," Bret said observationally.

"Sorry?" They all had beards in this film, and by all accounts (his mum and Bret's mum) Viggo Mortensson was greatly improved by a certain degree of scruffiness.

"Well his family's been the stewards for all this time only for some one to waltz in without shaving or wiping their boots and saying they're king,"

"Bret, how do you think these things up? Besides he seems to be taking most of that attitude back now with all this 'my brother, my captain' business"

"Yeah... That's nice I guess"

"You don't think it's a bit gay?" Jemaine held his breath and wasn't entirely sure why.

"Not everything is gay, Jemaine. It's all gay with you!" Bret exclaimed, exasperated.

"Right sorry" Jemaine muttered guiltily.

"There's not that many girls in this film. They have to express their feelings because they're no ladies there to be in touch with their feminine sides!"

"What about this kissing thing?"

"Well... that's not gay. Look." Bret broke off and leaned over, bridging the gap between them. He kissed Jemaine's temple clumsily and slipped a bit causing a minor collision with his friend.

"See," he said breathing against Jemaine's face, "that's ok. Isn't it?" Bret bit his lip and looked up into Jemaine's eyes.

"I'm not sure," Jemaine stuttered, "can you try it again?"

Bret blushed and nodded slightly. He pushed his body up and pressed his lips against the bigger man's forehead. Jemaine sucked in a shaky breath quickly. Bret pulled back and looked Jemaine full in the face, becoming uncomfortably aware that he was straddling his friend's lap.

Jemaine's face and neck was flushed and his pupils were wide and dilated, making his eyes look black. He felt large hands at his hips manoeuvring his slim body onto Jemaine's broad lap. No wonder he does such good time on the stationary bike, Bret thought absently, feeling the other man's strong legs between his own. The hands were now moving up his back and pushing him forward closer and closer towards his friend, which made it very hard to think of anything at all.

"Bret, I think I'm going to kiss you. It might be a bit gay," said Jemaine very earnestly. The sheer absurdity of the situation made Bret giggle nervously. He nodded quickly before Jemaine lost his nerve.

"I suppose we won't know until you do it," he said in a pitch at least an octave above his normal speaking voice. There goes suave and confident, he thought hysterically in the part of his mind that was still capable of thought.

Jemaine suddenly pulled Bret very close, until their faces were almost touching.

"Hi," he said and then immediately felt ridiculous.

"Hi," replied Bret who chose this moment to start giggling again.

The giggling stopped as soon as it began when Jemaine tipped his head to the side and pressed his lips to Bret's with surprising tenderness. The pulled apart and looked at each other.

"That was a bit gay," said Jemaine awkwardly.

"Do you mind if we try it again to be sure?" Jemaine looked up at Bret who was biting his bottom lip and smiled. Bret smiled back gently and kissed Jemaine softly and open mouthed.

This was new and different and ioh god Bret!/i He rubbed patterns up and down the skinny back under his hand and delighted in the warm, wet noises Bret made and the happy humming that the stroking produced.

Jemaine had the fullest softest lips he had ever kissed. Softer than any girl's. And yet at the same time, there was stubble scratching his cheeks and a hard man's body underneath his own. And it was flippin' awesome.

They had to stop to breath and rested their foreheads together and panted against one another's faces.

"Definitely gay," Bret smiled. Jemaine tugged at the bottom of Bret's tee shirt and grinned back at him. His lips were swollen and his face was red where Bret's beard had rubbed against him.

"Bret, I have a confession," he said, "I drank from your water bottle." Bret cuffed him around the head playfully.

They curled up on the sofa with the blanket tucked carefully around them. The big talks could wait til the morning, when they were rested and better. Right now it was alright to be a little gay.


End file.
